another great read . . .

I picked up a book at the library last week and I have to admit, I completely judged this book by its cover.  Who wouldn't be intrigued by that photo ?  It reminded me of "it's the new Jan Brady" Brady Bunch episode.  The author recounts her childhood, being a white girl growing up in a predominately black neighborhood of South Seattle.   I didn't realize the local ties until I started reading.  Her stories are funny, compelling and heart breaking all at the same time.  I found myself unable to put the book down until I was finished.  I highly recommend !

it's National Coffee Day

I sing praises every day to Kaldi the Ethiopian goat herder, whose accidental discovery of coffee centuries ago makes our pre-dawn hours much more pleasant. Legend has it that sometime late in the first millennium, the Abyssinian goat herder noticed a discerned up-tempo to the frolic in his herd as they grazed on the berries of a certain bush. Not wanting his herd to get away from him, adventurous Kaldi sampled the ruby red berries and soon discovered that he too had added a certain hop to his step. Kaldi soon shared his experience with some monks in his community. They experimented by roasting some of the red berries and realized that they were able to be more alert during their all night prayer sessions after sipping a cup of these brewed red berries. From Ethiopia, the coffee beans made their way north to Yemen and eventually became a staple drink in Arabia. Over time, the love for coffee spread throughout Europe and was eventually exported to various colonies around the world. 

A study was recently conducted by Career Builder to determine which professions had the heaviest coffee drinkers.  It included more than 3,600 workers nationwide. Their findings:

1) Nurses

2) Physicians

3) Hotel workers

4) Designers/Architects

5) Financial/Insurance sales representatives

6) Food preparers

7) Engineers

8) Teachers

9) Marketing/Public Relations professionals

10) Scientists

12) Government workers

our venture this week . . .

... was to the Japanese Garden within the Washington Park Arboretum. The 200+ acre parks sits just south of the University of Washington's campus.  It is jointly managed by UW and the City of Seattle.  The City owns the land and the University owns all of the trees and plants. As far as maintenance and management, the City takes care of the park-like functions (trails, benches, garbage) and the UW Botanic Gardens takes care of the gardens, trees and plant collections. 

The Japanese Garden is at the very southern end of the park. It is a 3.5 acre formal garden designed and constructed under the supervision of world-renowned Japanese garden designer Juki Iida in 1960.        

The koi were HUGE.  The size of my whole arm.  And beautiful in color.  We bought a bag a feed with our admission to lure them within photo distance. 

Ichiro breaks another record !

Ichiro Suzuki singled in the fifth inning of today's game against the Blue Jays for his 200th hit of 2010, marking his 10th straight season to reach that number. Pete Rose had ten seasons of 200+ hits from 1965-1979, but never had more than three years in a row during that time.

Way to go, Ichiro !  Seattle is lucky to have you.


    

14 years and counting . . .

Today is our 14th wedding anniversary. This was our engagement photo. Wow we look young - and much smaller. Gabe was just a pup. Cheers to 14 years !

welcome home, champs

Since we're only 15 minutes away, we went to Seatac airport this afternoon to greet the Storm as they arrived home from Atlanta.

I even made it on the local news ...

congratulations ladies !

ERIKA SCHULTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Well, they did it. And BIG. The Seattle Storm swept the Atlanta Dream in three games and took the 2010 WNBA Championship last night. Lauren Jackson was named MVP of the series. Way to go, Ladies. At least we have one championship team in this city.

ERIKA SCHULTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES

a bit too à propos ...

Given our lack of a real summer and the prediction for a wetter than normal winter, maybe these boots would be fitting. At least I would know just how much water I was plowing through. What a variety of colors too.

Kubota Garden

In our attempt to see more of what this great city has to offer, we went to the Kubota Garden in South Seattle a few weeks ago. It is owned by the city and maintained by the Parks Department. The gardens are beautiful. I'm not sure why we had never been, but I'm glad we found it. What a gem.

some times you feel like a post . . . some times you don't

I didn't realize it had been so long since I last posted. Not much happening that I deemed blogworthy, I guess. We've been cleaning gutters the past week. I should have taken "before" and "after" shots of that ghastly task. That would have been worthy.

I saw this news video on the Comcast homepage. I think it's definitely worthy of a post. (sorry for the commercial)

The related story: http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-science/20100913/US.SCI.Gulf.Oil.Spill.Sea.Floor/

my own private island . . .

Kiplinger's online real estate section features 12 private islands that are for sale. Wouldn't that be nice ?? Here were a few of my favorites on the list:

Snug Harbour Island

Where: On Georgian Bay, Ontario, Canada
Asking Price: $1,057,000
Acreage: 3
Developed

A two-hour drive from Toronto, this island features a two-bedroom, two-bath cottage with a glassed-in porch overlooking the water, a separate guest cabin with bathroom, hot tub built into the rock outcropping, and a boathouse with deep water mooring. Running water, electric, a septic field. And it has wireless Internet access.

5 Cove Island

Place: Howe Sound, British Columbia, between Whistler and Vancouver
Asking Price: $2,950,000
Acreage: 5
Developed

A 30-minute boat ride from the city of Vancouver, this island is up for sale to developers, with an approved subdvision plan.

Krokholmen Island

Where: North Atlantic, near Bodø, Norway
Asking Price: $1,292,000 (1 million euros)
Acreage: 74 acres
Developed

Offshore retreat? This is an offshore town. The property features nine buildings including a restaurant, pub, conference center, marina, boathouses, and a hot tub. Price also includes several boats, an all-terrain vehicle for getting around the island, fishing and hunting gear, and a clay-pigeon set-up for shooting. The Gulf Stream keeps the climate here mild, despite its location in northern Norway.

Way to go, Storm ! ! !

MICHAEL CHOW / THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC

One of the most deserving but overlooked teams in this town is our Seattle Storm. With a 91-88 victory over Phoenix tonight, they advance to the WNBA Finals. The Storm's Lauren Jackson was named this season's MVP and the team's coach, Brian Agler, is coach of the year. Congratulations ! Nice to have a winning season around here.

Maddie's first day of school

Today was our niece's first day of kindergarten. Dan's brother sent us this photo of her anxiously awaiting the bus. It's hard to believe she's old enough for school already. Seems like her baptism was just yesterday.

Hope you have a fantastic year, Maddie !

some of our favorites won !

I only caught a few minutes of the Emmy Awards last night, but was very happy to see the list of winners this morning. One of our favorite shows is AMC's Breaking Bad. Both the writing and the acting are absolutely superb. Bryan Cranston (Walt) won for best actor-drama and Aaron Paul (Jesse) won for best supporting actor-drama. So well deserved.

We also really enjoyed HBO's movie Temple Grandin and thought Claire Danes gave an excellent performance. She won last night for best actress in a TV movie/mini-series. She looked beautiful - and how nice to see the real Temple Grandin in the audience. Her story is remarkable.

what's been missing this summer ?

Well, at least here in Seattle, the most obvious thing missing this summer was the sun. Which directly correlates to another thing missing this summer......my multiple posts about the tomatoes in our garden. It's been a very sad season for the tomatoes, although we are starting to see many ripen in the past few days. We stuck to our favorite again this year - the Sungold. Only four plants, which is a small number for us. But maybe that was for the best.

What seems to be loving this weather are the greens and the kohlrabi. I planted seeds on August 2nd and we've been enjoying salads for the past week. The kohlrabi will take a bit longer, but the planter box is brimming.

From left - spinach, kohlrabi, red leaf and green leaf lettuces.

B O N S A I !

We ventured just about 15 miles south the other day to visit the Weyerhaeuser Bonsai Garden for the first time. We've noticed its sign from I-5 several times, but have never stopped. It is an amazing place - far exceeding our expectations. Each tree is beautifully presented, with info placards explaining the origin and species. The grounds were impeccably maintained.

This is only a small sampling of what we saw, but contains a few of our favorites. More can be seen here.

awesome additions !

I received a couple packages from my mom yesterday and, pardon the pun, they really were a true motherload ! Amongst other goodies, she sent me two new additions for my ever-expanding Polaroid camera collection.

One is a Polaroid Model 80 (Highlander). (from rkphoto.com) Made from 1954-57 and the first Land camera to be smaller sized than the other current models. The camera body is steel with brown painted crackle finish and self-erecting bellows design. It has a rigid viewfinder on top of the camera and the exposure is set by Light Value scale ("Polaroid numbers"). The shutter is a 2-speed everset rotary-leaf design (1/25 and 1/100 plus Bulb) coupled with a 100mm ~ f/8.8, 3-element glass lens. The flash is M-sync via Polaroid "hot shoe". This camera series is also known as the "Highlander". Look for some Model 80 (not all) to have real chrome-plated trim.

The other is a Polaroid Model 95A. (also from rkphoto.com) Made between 1954-1957 and was basicly the same as the Model 95. However, a wire frame finder replaced the sighting post used on the earlier Model 95. A couple more changes were made as well. An X-sync was added for a flash while the shutter speeds were increased to 1/12 - 1/100 second. Features a 130mm ~ f/8 lens and folding optical finder.

They are in great condition and I love them both. Thanks Mom !!

another fun read

I've enjoyed reading books by Laurie Notaro for several years now. I started with her first book, "The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club" and have been laughing ever since. She mostly writes non-fiction, taking stories from her own experiences and blending them with her fantastic, crazy sense of humor. Which I love. I just finished her second venture into the fiction world, entitled "Spookly Little Girl". It had a very strong (and hilarious) main character, a really good story and was a fairly light read. And most important, it made me laugh out loud.


She also has a website that is equally as funny as her books. Her August 6th entry is tear-jerking.

they were supposed to be red . . .

At least that's what the label said ...

We dug up the remaining potatoes this morning and they definitely aren't Irish Reds. They look a lot like the ones we harvested last month. That's ok, since those were really delicious. But we were looking forward to some variety. Once again, the potato bags have proven to be quite successful.

ahhhhhhhhh Democracy . . .

Quite the organized protest at our local Target store last Saturday morning ...